Yesterday:
I hopped a cab on my way home from my dad’s house (he looks good). Judging by his name, accent, etc., he is Pakistani. He kept turning his head to talk and I kept saying, “what?” (More likely, “whaaaattttt?”). It turns out that I didn’t notice (when I got into the cab) there was a woman in the front passenger seat. Very diminutive woman, in fact. They seemed to be having a great time. She answered a cell phone on speaker, so I could tell it was a middle-aged woman (same age as cab driver). Was it his wife driving with him so they could spend “quality time” together? Was it a girlfriend? Hmmmmmm.
Postscript: I have thought about this further in the context of my job. Here’s a guy who brought his wife/girlfriend to work. I, the client, was the interloper. Imagine if I brought my partner to a deal closing and giggled throughout. But, then again, the cabbie probably has overheard the craziest things as his passengers chatter on cell phones, so why should he think it improper. All I can say is, eeww. EEEEwwww. EEEEEEwwwwwww.
Today:
Diffusion of responsibility is alive and well, 40 years after the Kitty Genovese killing (for those of you born in the 70s and later, people looked on doing nothing as the victim was being killed, believing that others would call the police).
There was a fight on the subway platform this morning and most people kept going along their ways. One man tried to break it up and, when he couldn’t, he called out to people to call the police. I ran upstairs where I could get cell phone reception and made the call.
I had a 911 operator on the line, describing the scene of two men fighting on the platform — actually one guy fighting; the other avoiding the fight. But there is no way to tell who instigated the altercation.
The 911 operator asked me to identify the races of the men. “White and black,” I said, wondering in my head if I should have said, “African-American”. But, then, should I have said, “Caucasian”? All this going on while I am trying to report something. Weird, where the mind goes. And, really, did my political correctness score really matter? No.
An MTA guard appeared and broke it up and one guy left and disappeared into a crowd. I told the 911 operator that the incident was over and the matter seemed to be under control.
Other people seemed to think someone else would do something. That was more frightening than the fight itself.
Postscript: Tonight, I told my son that I had to call 911 because people couldn’t settle a dispute with “words” and I also told him that “words” can cause fights. Not that he should be timid; just that he needs to understand the power of words, for example, to unite a country in hope, divide a country in despair or cause a fight in New York City on a subway platform.
